Canyon country: Arequipa and Colca Canyon

Arequipa

Originally I wrote this post sometime after midnight and I was in a very bad mood due to some very loud and very awful music. At the time I was feeling pretty disgruntled towards Peru. It started with an overpriced taxi ride, continued with a slightly horrid day at Machu Pichu and ended with an expensive (time and money) side trip that didn't seem worth it.

Looking back, I still don't love Peru, but maybe I would consider going back now. I think the problem is that Peru has a very high tourist flow, mainly because it has Machu Pichu. As a result, a lot of the countries main tourist spots are filled with tourists and the annoyances that come with them. Like a lack of local atmosphere, which is really a huge downside when you're travelling to experience a country for it's individuality not for it's constant train of tourist restaurants and shops. You could say that we had a touristy experience because we only went to the main tourist areas. But, we did that in pretty much every country we went to and no other country was quite so suffocated with tourists as Peru. If we ever did go back, I would avoid the main tourist spots. Not just because we've seen them, but also to experience Peru in a more authentic light.

I still have mixed feelings towards Colca Canyon. I think we were so disappointed by it because we were expecting sheer drops, and we had already seen a similar landscape near Cusco. To us the canyon just looked like a very deep valley. I even looked up the definition of canyon to double check it was actually a canyon. It started with an 11 hour bus trip from Nazca to Arequipa, which should have been shorted except we came across a flaming tuck and were delayed. We arrived at about 1am to a very grumpy receptionist, but we were just glad they actually opened the door to us. There's not that much to do in Arequipa, just visiting churches or maybe climbing a volcano. We spend the day wandering town, realizing there was nothing to do, before going to a "lookout" on the other side of the river. It wasn't a very good lookout, but it was something to do. On the way back, an old lady was squatting on the bridge having a pee. Lovely. Arequipa is meant to be a pearly white city made of volcanic rock. It wasn't. A lot of buildings were obviously just painted white over their rendered brick to give that appearance. I looked as close as possible to the buildings that were made of volcanic rock and I couldn't for the life of me see any pearliness. We organized to get the 3am tourist bus to Cabanaconde for the following morning. I can't remember how much the bus was, but it wasn't cheap and didn't include breakfast. We had to pay 70 Soles per person to get into the canyon. I'm not sure why because it's not a national park and the only tourist facilities are a few shelters at lookouts and a broken sign of the canyon that we found on the ground. Oh and one free toilet. It was something like a 6 hour bus trip to the canyon and the day started with the absolute worst breakfast I have ever encountered. Half an egg each plus a dismal supply of bread rolls and jam with 1 and a half jugs of juice between 10 people. And this was clearly the spot every tourist bus or tour stopped for breakfast... Half an egg. Half a freaking egg! In another hour or so we reached cruz del condor where, again, every tourist bus stops to see the condors. So, enjoy trying to get a photo of a reasonably unremarkable vulture while 200 other people jostle for the best spot. Condors have a 2m wingspan, which is amazing. But when they are way out there, they just look like any other bird.
Things were wearing thin on me by this stage. Particularly the rude tourists jostling for space at the condor lookout.
We got to our accommodation at about 11am and after having a pretty rough conversation with the Spanish only speaking woman behind the counter, I found the information book I had been wanting and we set off to climb a small mountain and go to the two closest lookouts on the canyon rim. The view from the mountain was quite lovely, as was one of the lookouts (which we later realized was not actually the lookout). We were on our feet for ages and I was so foot sore by that night. It was the first night I have had to take pain killers for leg pain.

The view from the top of our little mountain climb

When I look back at the photos I took, they are quite nice. And I am pleased I managed to overcome my disappointment enough to take them. The one thing I want to know is where the measure the depth of a canyon from. Because that point would make a huge difference to the depth.

The Canyon

In the morning we were away at sometime after 9:30 (when the bus was meant to collect us) and we arrived in Puno that night. There was no Internet in Cabanaconde, so unfortunately I had to rely on Lonely Planet's recommendation and as such we paid far too much and were kept awake. Leaving me to eat musli bars and search for new hotels.